We’ve communed with animals since the dawn of time. All over the planet, there are ancient cave paintings depicting humans living, working and sleeping alongside animal kind. We’ve examined everything about them, yet no-one ever thought to examine the paint. Until now. And what an interesting concoction it is; plant dyes, bacteria, fungal spores, and oil from the human hands that mixed it. Proof that life is not separate: we are more powerful together. Ancient humans knew this. Maybe now, thousands of years later, we’re beginning to remember.
Brock Williams, Working Notes.
Robyn pipetted solution into the vial of blood on her bench, agitating it to mix the protein matrix with the blood cells. Heart in mouth, she watched for the tell- tale colour change that would indicate disruption of the convergence sequence, but the vial remained red. Damn it.
Sighing, she scrawled a line through her latest attempt at a deactivation sequence. Similar failures filled her notebook. Brock and Miranda were right – in order to stop Vulcan, they had to incapacitate his induced convergence army. And they were agreed, Fang’s environmental virus activators held the key. Thank God Brock had managed to smuggle out samples of Fang’s work when he’d fled the base in Bulgaria. Samples Robyn was busy putting to good use. She had to admit, Fang knew her shit – these activators were top shelf.
“Dr Greene?”
It took Robyn a moment to register who the person was talking to. She still wasn’t used to her new title, but Brock and Miranda had insisted she’d more than earned it. Robyn turned to see that a scientist had brought a fresh rack of vials.
“Anything yet?” Robyn asked her.
The woman shook her head and placed the rack on Robyn’s bench. “We’re working our way through the combinations you suggested, but none have bonded with the convergence sequence.”
Robyn cursed. She’d stayed up all night reading scientific papers and writing out a list of inhibitor combinations. For days, it had been all hands on deck testing each one, trying to unlock the key. To no avail. It has to work, it just has to. Robyn remembered Vulcan’s ultimatum: surrender or die. She smiled at the scientist. “Thanks for the update. Keep working through the list – I’m going to get some air.”
Yanking off her gloves, Robyn stepped out into the sunshine. Lenti emerged from his tent and followed her, her discreet shadow. She pretended not to notice but in truth, his devotion, his belief in her, kept her motivated. They had to find the key – for her friends, for the walkers, for every converger on the planet. Especially now Fletcher was back. Fletcher. The way he’d channelled tendrils of dark energy toward Eli and Ariana. The sensations she’d experienced through their energy tethers. It was awful. The memories pierced her consciousness when she slept. Ever since, Robyn woke up covered in sweat and gripped with pain.
Robyn and Lenti passed the temple ruins and stopped at the base of the ancient tree. She sat in the embrace of its tangled roots. Lenti chose to perch on top of a thick root that grew precariously close to the mountain edge. Warmed by the golden light of the setting sun, Robyn watched the clouds scuttle through the valley below. She ran her fingers along the gnarled surfaces of the surrounding roots. There was moss, clusters of cup-shaped orange mushrooms, and tiny seedlings that reached for the sunlight through cracks in the rock. Life – always striving, colonising new places, adapting, evolving. Never in stasis.
Lenti plucked a dandelion and scraped a cluster of the cup-shaped mushrooms. “Every morning, we made an offering of life at the temple, like this.” He tipped the flower and mushrooms into Robyn’s open palms. “I think the key you seek is right in front of us, not in the lab.”
Robyn studied his gift. What an idiot she had been. Lenti hadn’t just been following her around – he’d been listening, thinking, trying to help her. Not her shadow but her cipher. She looked up into the canopy of branches intertwined above their heads. The tree of life. Humans, plants, animals, fungi. All part of a greater whole. The walkers’ chromatograms had two peaks. Plant and fungal compounds. She stared at the delicate flower and mushrooms cupped in her hands, her mind flooding with certainty. “You’re right,” she said, scrambling to her feet so fast the young monk fell backwards, landing on the ground with a thump.
“Bloody hell, Lenti, you’ve cracked it!” She pulled him to his feet. “Come on! I need your help.”
Three hours later, Robyn held aloft an Erlenmeyer flask filled with a viscous green liquid as if she were a magician who had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Brock and Miranda looked at it, then at the thin layer of soil, leaves and mushroom stems that littered the bench. Miranda shrugged. “You did what, exactly?”
Lenti, standing tall in his very own lab coat, pushed his safety glasses on top of his head. “We’ve made an inhibitor.”
“Right,” Brock said, looking to Robyn for confirmation.
Robyn brushed the debris aside with the sleeve of her lab coat. “Think about the walkers’ protein signatures in their chromatograms – their convergence sequence creates both plant and fungal compounds. Thanks to Lenti, I realised that’s exactly what we need to disrupt Fang’s viral activation sequences: plant and fungal DNA.”
“Go on,” Miranda said, pulling up a lab stool. “I’m intrigued.”
Robyn swirled the flask, exhilaration coursing through her system. “This is a highly concentrated extract of plant and fungal cells.”
“That explains why the smell in here is so intense.” Brock covered his cough as he moved closer to the bench.
Robyn sniffed the air. All she could smell was a distinct note of earthiness. She raised an eyebrow at Lenti and he wrinkled his nose. “It does smell pretty bad.”
Robyn scanned the lab. The desks closest to hers were conspicuously empty. The scientists working through her list of traditional inhibitors had moved to a cluster of benches that caught the breeze through the open tent flap. “Okay then. It smells bad.”
Lenti grinned and took the flask from Robyn. He placed it carefully on the bench then passed her a vial of pale-white liquid.
Robyn showed the vial to Brock and Miranda. “This is the inhibitor. I’ve spliced plant and fungal mitochondrial genes into the human convergence sequence.”
Lenti brought over a rack of vials, each containing a tiny amount of blood. “These are some of Fang’s viral convergence activation sequences,” Robyn explained as she loaded a pipette full of the white liquid. “Let’s hope my hypothesis is right.”
Miranda leaned in closer. “What are we looking for?”
“Colour change. I’ve added an indicator dye to the inhibitor. If the blood solution turns purple, it means the inhibitor has bound to the convergence sequence.” Robyn took a deep breath to steady her nerves. If her hands weren’t full, she’d cross her fingers. “Truth time.”
She depressed the trigger on the pipette and dispensed three drops into the first vial. The individual droplets splashed the surface of the sample, penetrating deep into the vial, then slowly dispersed.
Miranda slumped on her stool. “Nothing.”
“Wait,” Brock said, touching her arm. He picked up the vial and gently agitated it to mix the two liquids.
The solution turned a violent purple.
No-one said a word. Robyn carefully repeated the procedure with the remaining two vials. Brock agitated each one and again: an explosion of purple.
Robyn stood frozen, still holding the pipette. She couldn’t believe it – it had worked. Brock and Miranda stared at the bright purple vials. Lenti started dancing around the lab.
“You’ve done it,” Brock said, breaking the shocked silence. “You’ve found a way to stop Vulcan.”
Robyn shook her head, still struggling to believe she’d actually done it. Her mind raced. “Unfortunately, the inhibitor is only temporary. Once it’s introduced to the bloodstream, the foreign DNA will only remain stable for a few hours.”
Brock laughed. “But the MRI won’t know that, will they?”
Of course, Brock was right. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Robyn held up the rack of vials, admiring the row of purple. It finally hit her – after all this time, she’d found a way to fix the damage she’d unwittingly caused by creating the original activation dose. The MRI had twisted her work, leading to the deaths of millions of people. Now she could start making amends. Some of the guilt lifted from her shoulders. Robyn felt lighter than she had in a long time.
Miranda checked the time and reached for her laptop. “We only have a few days until Vulcan’s ultimatum expires. We have to start synthesising the inhibitor right away.”
“And we need a distribution vector,” Brock added. “Perhaps a projectile weapon of some kind? Miranda, do you remember those designs the institute commissioned? Some of the old supplies are in storage here. I could take a look and see if they could be adapted.”
“Great idea,” Miranda said, eyes glued to her screen. “I’ll start manufacturing the inhibitor – we’ll need all hands on deck.”
Lenti joined the ex-MRI chief. “I’ll help.”
Brock paused in the doorway to the tent. “In all the excitement, I forgot,” he said, pulling out his tablet. “Thanks to a temporary lull in solar activity, your friends managed to get an encrypted data package through.”
Robyn snatched the tablet from Brock. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Robyn sat alone in her tent, Brock’s juiced-up tablet on her lap, and watched the week-old recording. Onscreen, Catherine stood staring into the mirror, hands braced against the sink. She looked gaunt, unsteady on her feet, bruises snaking around her arms and collarbone, her shoulders shaking. Even though the recording didn’t include sound, Robyn could tell she was crying. Robyn touched the screen, crushing guilt and despair flooding through her. I’m sorry, Catherine. Sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. Nearly four whole months. Robyn bit her fist to stop the tears. I wasn’t there for you, or for Fletcher. This is all wrong, and I’m not sure how to make it right. How must Catherine feel? Abandoned, worthless, alone. I’m going to get you out of there. I’m going to rescue you. I swear it.
“Knock knock.” Brock stepped through the tent opening with two steaming mugs. Robyn swiped her eyes and took a steadying breath. “Thank you,” she murmured as she accepted the tea.
Her ex-supervisor sat beside her. “Are you all right?”
When Robyn didn’t reply, he took the tablet and shut off the video feed. “She’s your friend.”
Robyn pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it tight around her like a cocoon. “Catherine is my girlfriend.”
Mug halfway to his mouth, Brock paused. “Oh.” His ears turned a delicate shade of pink. “I’m so sorry, Robyn.”
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Four whole freaking months.”
Brock studied the footage of Catherine. “Do you know where she’s being held?”
Robyn knew what he meant, the video gave away no details. “Kara and Kate said she’s being held in an ex-military compound in Alaska. It was an experimental radio array that Vulcan brought back into commission.”
Robyn tapped the tablet and brought up an encrypted file. “The twins have managed to get a basic map of the MRI’s operations base. It’s well fortified, remote, and packed with soldiers and convergers. From what they’ve been able to gather, it seems the MRI uses the radio array to protect their own communications integrity. It’s the reason why they’ve been able to send their convergers and army into the field with such … success.”
Brock skimmed through the file, eyes bright with excitement. “This is exactly what we need. Now we know where they are, we can bring your inhibitor to them. Together we can stop Vulcan, restore a sense of balance to the world.”
Brock’s zeal was contagious. He was right – they now had everything they needed to stop the would-be polemarch in his tracks. “I need to rescue my girlfriend,” Robyn said, pushing her blanket cocoon aside with renewed determination. “And I’m going to make that bastard Vulcan pay for what he’s done to her.” Her birthmark flared and white light shimmered on her skin. She turned to Brock. “Let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”