The word extinction hung in the air. Cash was stunned by the scientist’s revelations. Everything finally made sense—the craziness of the killers, their hatred and brutality, the rituals, the taunting. And it even explained Gunnerson’s mysterious comment about asking Barrow what he thought he was doing up there. Along with his refusal to explain the same question—because it would have exposed his son and daughter-in-law as having come to Erebus to get themselves a designer baby.
The thought of babies gave her an idea. “You told us earlier that your resurrected animals couldn’t reproduce. But … can the Neanders reproduce?”
At this, Karman’s eyes seemed to glitter. “Yes. We thought not and tried to stop any liaisons of that kind. But you know how it is: the Neanders themselves showed us they could. And the babies they had were perfect—fully Neanderthal, of course.”
Cash tried to wrap her mind around this idea—that they could reproduce. “Can they … interbreed with humans?” she asked.
“They did before,” said Karman. “There’s no reason why they couldn’t do so now.”
A brief silence fell on the group while they contemplated this.
Colcord asked, “How did word get around that people could get a souped-up baby at Erebus?”
“A genetically enhanced baby.”
“Whatever. How did people learn this service existed?”
“Through Barrow. He lives in an exclusive world of billionaires. They move in cloistered circles in places like Davos and Bohemian Grove. Very quietly, he spread the knowledge of our gene-editing platform for couples wishing to conceive. Barrow recruited the rich families—that was his role. He was the salesman. And of course, the customers had every incentive to keep the secret.”
“And how much does this … baby enhancement cost?”
“Twelve million.”
“Twelve million dollars for each baby?”
“The megarich will pay anything to have perfect children.”
“The parents had no idea Neanderthal genes were being stuffed into their precious little embryos?”
“They wouldn’t have understood. But let me be clear: resurrecting the Neanders wasn’t just to exploit their genetic heritage.”
“What else?” Colcord asked.
“To right the great wrong we did to them. They’re humans too, of course. Now that we have the technology to do it, I believe it is a moral imperative to bring them back. This was the reason I became involved.”
“They don’t seem grateful for being de-extincted,” said Romanski.
“Of course they are! It’s just that a poisonous ideology took hold. We gave them wonderful lives. You saw the playground. That was just one of several, and they had excellent teachers and classrooms, books and movies, world-class sporting programs, nice clothes, and good food. They put on Shakespeare plays, they had a chess club, some of them played music and had a rock band—we gave them the best of everything. Of course, we had to be careful what knowledge they had access to. It was decided—against my wishes—that they shouldn’t know who they were or where they came from. They would live their lives in a walled garden, content with the carefully curated information we gave them.”
“How did it go wrong?”
“We consistently underestimated their cleverness. They learned enough—little clues here and there—to fill in the gaps, piece things together. They realized they were experimental subjects. They figured out they were Neanderthals, that they were being held prisoner, and that they were being used by us Sapiens for some purpose. It was quite astonishing how clever they were. Perhaps …” He hesitated. “Perhaps I was partly responsible. I encouraged iconoclastic thinking in some of the brighter ones. I see now it was a mistake to teach them so much about science and technology and give them computers. I truly regret that—I thought I was doing good. But they figured out so much more than we expected and turned it all against us. Making it worse, Neanders are susceptible to conspiracy theories and magical thinking. They turn too quickly to violence as a way of solving problems. This cannibalism thing is horrific—I had no idea they were capable of that.”
“So it was a little like The Truman Show,” said Colcord. “Until they found out what was really going on.”
“You might say that.”
“I can’t believe you would think resurrecting Neanderthals would be a good idea,” said Colcord.
“I raised these Neanders—some of them are like my own children. They’re not evil or murderous. We had no idea they would create a religion out of taking back the earth from Sapiens. And in the early days, genetic errors led to some mental issues. I refused to let those unfortunates be put down. But because they were dangerous and unpredictable, we had to keep them in secure conditions, humane conditions. Some of those were among the ones who initially escaped—and poisoned the minds of others.”
“Hey,” said Reno, who was taking up the rear. “Down there—lights.”
They stopped and looked back down the slope. Cash could see a patch of distant, flickering lights from where they had come, maybe half a mile away.
“Son of a bitch,” said Romanski. “Your dear misunderstood friends are chasing us.”
“You know these Neanderthals,” said Cash. “You got any ideas on how we might deal with them?”
Karman looked pale in the moonlight. “We can’t outrun them. We can’t lose them—they’re expert trackers. They have a keen sense of smell, so it won’t do any good to try to hide. They’re far more adapted to the cold than we are.”
“Nice,” said Romanski. “So let’s just give ourselves up to be cooked and eaten. With fava beans, of course.”
“So what can we do?” asked Cash.
“I can talk to them,” Karman said.
Romanski laughed bitterly. “And earn your own personal decollation.”
Karman didn’t answer.
“We’d better just keep going,” said Colcord. “Standing around jawing is not an option.”
Karman said nothing and turned away. They continued up the slope, struggling to move as fast as possible. Cash found herself gasping for breath in the thin air, and Colcord wasn’t doing any better. The lights were coming up the ridgeline fast. There were a lot of them—it was a mob.
“What are their weaknesses?” Cash asked Karman. “Aside from a lack of empathy.”
“Weaknesses?”
“What I’m getting at is: How can we use those differences between us to our advantage? We were able to defeat them once—can’t we do it again?”
Karman shook his head. “No. We can’t. They’re really fixated on wiping out the Sapiens—that’s given them a purpose. They might end up squabbling and killing each other later, when they’re sitting around a campfire, but right now—forget it.”
“So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do,” Cash said.
“Except he’s going to talk to them,” said Romanski.
“They know me. I understand them.”
Cash looked down the slope. It was frightening how fast those lights were coming up—and how many there were. It was almost as if they were running uphill—in fact, they probably were.
“Listen,” Cash said to the group. “We don’t have a lot of time until they’re on top of us. We’d better find a defensive location and get ready to fight.”
“Fight? With what?” Romanski cried.
“Rocks,” said Cash.
“Rocks? Is that a joke? We’re gonna throw rocks at them?”
“I’m going down fighting.”
The lights below them were now spreading out in a line. They were no more than a quarter mile below. It looked like the whole mob—everyone.
And then came a muffled rumble from deep within the mountain. It grew rapidly in intensity, and then a blast of fire shot from the mine entrance far below with a roar, and elsewhere among the nearby mountains fire and smoke jetted out like great cannons blasting into the night, the thunderous echoes bouncing off the peaks. The entire side of the mountain to their right cracked and began to slide, collapsing into a giant, fiery avalanche.
The laboratory complex had been blown up.