Interrupt (41 page)

What if early
Homo sapiens
had purposefully bred with their cousins in order to become more like them?

So-called “normal” people exhibited any number of traits that were borderline autistic—fussy with clothes—fussy with belongings—digestive allergies to grains and dairy—and a preternatural ability to concentrate on certain stimuli. Like Marcus, Emily was neat and quick with numbers. In their individual cases, the combination had made for powerful intellects.

We belong together,
she thought.
Marcus could help me solve the discrepancies in my data. But I can’t trust him.

Most of what he said was useful and right. She’d also learned to listen for his lies. He slanted everything in his own interest. Each time she visited, it felt like a mental tug-of-war. She needed him. He was an incredible asset, yet Emily questioned his motives even as she sympathized with his pain.

What if Marcus had been coaching some of the other scientists through the first stages of a rebellion? He didn’t want the bunker to last.
He wanted to find Roell. If he could cause the collapse of this stronghold, or merely introduce enough mayhem to escape his jail cell, Emily didn’t suppose he cared what happened to the rest of them.

“I think someone’s planning an attack inside the bunker,” she said. If he reacted, she might be able to give the soldiers better information.

“Who?” he asked.

“Some of the civilians. It looks like they’re counting the soldiers going in and out of the complex.”

His face showed nothing.

“Why would anyone do that?” she asked. “We have so many problems already.”

“People need trouble, Emily.” He waved at the blank TV. “Look at our entertainment. We like to be scared because we have a huge capacity for fear. The most basic element of storytelling is conflict because we respond to it. If nothing’s wrong, we’ll create new conflicts.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her world had been full of greed and infidelity, but the game she was playing with his ego depended on her appearing naive. It helped that she was younger and female.

He smiled. “Emily, our most innate phobias can be traced to early survival traits. Fear of heights. Fear of open space. Fear of blood. Fear of strangers. You’re a biologist. You know nobody is ever afraid of paper or shoelaces. They obsess over things we’re evolved to guard against. They want to have these things to worry about,” he said, shifting and bending his left hand as he spoke.

She didn’t think he was aware of his fidgeting. His brown eyes were distant and insane.

He felt an echo in his mind. On the surface, he remained Marcus Wolsinger, but he rolled his arm again and again compulsively. The muscle memory went beneath his waking thoughts. He almost remembered.

No one who hadn’t felt that superconsciousness would understand. He wished he could show Emily, but she wasn’t one of the chosen.

Most of the people in his old life would be strangers to him now. Marcus thought of his ex-wife. All of the excuses Janet gave for divorcing him had been why she’d loved him at the start—because he paid the bills on time, because he remembered birthdays and anniversaries. He’d provided the stability she’d lacked in her childhood, but it hadn’t been enough. He was too awkward at participating in the excitement she craved, crowds, dancing, gossip, drinks. Eventually she’d left their perfect lives for a new adventure.

Roell had felt directionless for the same reason. Life had been too easy. They’d complained about gas prices and food prices and their wireless bill, which were fantastic luxuries. Even on Marcus’s middle-class salary, before Janet went to work, they had been richer than 99.99 percent of human beings who’d ever lived. The grocery stores were loaded, their nation had the industrial might to roll off three cars per household, and every other family had the money to feed two pets in addition to their kids.

We were so lucky,
he thought.
Too lucky.

Every day had been a fleeting treasure. They should have cherished their time together. Instead, they’d quarreled and looked away from each other in discontent.

“Marcus?” Emily asked.

He tore himself from his memories, blinking at the bare walls of his cell. “We’re programmed for hardship,” he said. “People are happiest when they’re working themselves to the bone.”

“No. Everyone in this bunker is stressed past the breaking point.”

“We’re evolved for less food, more exercise, less sleep, less security, more paranoia. The irony is that as a species,
Homo sapiens
was stupendously successful. It became normal to have more food, less exercise, more sleep, more security, less paranoia. Why do you think so many
people were prone to obesity and depression? Insomnia? Drug addiction? We were stagnating.”

“I, uh…”

Emily hesitated, and Marcus knew why. She’d told him about her work before the pulse. As part of her autism research, she’d brought forth new data that indicated a weakening gene pool. The discovery ate at her as if unearthing the trend made it her responsibility. Now he used her guilt against her.

“Widespread illness and cognitive disorders, our disaffected youth—these were symptoms of overpopulation,” he said. “Our lives were too soft, too cerebral, too different from everything we were meant to be.”

He believed it. Otherwise the decay in his relationships would have been his fault.

Putting the firmness back in her voice, Emily said, “A lot of people think the pulse may be intermittent. Bill Elledge swears it will stop.”

“He’s wrong.”

Emily wanted to slap him. She controlled herself. She fought down her helpless rage and said, “Even if the flares last, that doesn’t mean we should give up. We can do something about it. We’re safe in here.”

“For how long? Barely half of you are breeding age. That’s not enough to sustain a viable population.”

“There are other shelters,” Emily said. “If the flares last, we’ll figure something out. The men could rotate. We’ll make these caves bigger.”

She’d just proposed an insemination program as casually as she might have discussed tonight’s dinner, but Marcus ignored her.

“For the past month, the oceans have been steaming,” he said. “The rain at sea level fell as snow in the mountains and at the poles. It’s
counterintuitive, but intensifying solar heat will cause a cooling effect. There’s too much moisture in our atmosphere. The ice caps are growing, the higher elevations have turned white, and Earth’s albedo is increasing at an exponential rate. More and more of the sun’s heat will reflect back into space. Soon the balance will tip. The cold will create new weather patterns, drawing more water from the oceans. There will be more and more snow.”

“But that’s exactly what I mean,” she said. “I don’t understand how you could want to leave this bunker. I know you want to find Roell.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Marcus, people are dying out there.”

“Some of them. They’ll either adapt or they’ll disappear. You and I both know who’s best suited for another Ice Age.”

Emily lowered her gaze in disgust. It was one thing for him to say they should walk outside. He belonged to the dominant species, whereas she would be vulnerable, especially with her looks.

Biologists attributed the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in Caucasians to sexual displays like parrots’ feathers. Their diet and their environment had allowed for those small mutations, which persisted, then spread.

Colorful differences to attract mates would be even more important among people in a primitive state. If she was forced outside, she would never be alone—never have a choice—and she would probably give birth to children with the same physical allure.

Emily couldn’t keep the resentment from her voice. “People like you aren’t real Neanderthals,” she said.

Marcus was implacable. “Their children will have children who will be,” he said. “The rise in background radiation will accelerate the change. Then the best of them will breed with each other.”

Emily winced. Eons of heightened radiation, ash, temperature changes, and the necessity to survive at times on weeds or bark might
explain why humankind had so many digestive and blood-screening organs that no one fully understood.

The adenoids, the appendix, the gallbladder, and the spleen were all filtering organs that could be surgically removed without fatally affecting the patient.

Under enough environmental pressure, those organs might become vital again.

Short, furiously evolving generations,
she thought, envisioning the future in her mind. It was an empty feeling. The die-offs would be steep in all living things. But like a crucible, the storm-swept environment would purify the hybrid Neanderthals, leaving only their strongest.

Would they grow thicker and shorter until they physically resembled their ancestors? They were already more cohesive than
Homo sapiens
. If they also regained their musculature, every war across the planet would be brief.
Homo sapiens
would be driven from the best territories and left to persist in the deserts, the barren plains, and the rotting old concrete cities.

How could Marcus be so heartless? Because he was right?

Emily had one last card to play. “What if I could cure you and Roell?” she asked.

Marcus’s gaze sharpened on her for a moment. Then he turned away again as if drawn by something inside. His left hand continued to flex. “You can’t,” he said.

“I can. I’m getting close.”

“Emily,” he said. “Let me go.”

She stammered in surprise. He’d never asked outright before. “Th-that’s not up to me,” she said.

“You could talk to them. Let me go. There’s so little time.”

“You mean because something’s going to happen,” she said, finally drawing him back on topic. “What are the marks on the hatches into the complex?”

Marcus sidestepped her question. “Do you know the Fermi Paradox?” he asked.

I shouldn’t have come to see him,
she thought. He kept hammering at her, kept trying to coax her over the brink. She needed an anchor instead. She needed Drew to talk some sense into her because Marcus’s obsession was catching.

“Years before the SETI Project, a physicist named Enrico Fermi pointed out Earth should have been overrun with aliens if we weren’t alone,” Marcus said. “There are as many as ten to the twenty-first stars in the universe.”

She knew
10 to the 21st
meant 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000—a stupefying amount.

“Many are yellow suns like ours,” Marcus said. “Most of them have planets. But if G-stars aren’t as stable as we thought, there may not be anything more advanced than bacteria in galaxy after galaxy after galaxy.”

“That’s impossible. With so many stars, there must be other living worlds.”

“All of them burned.” His voice was mixed with fervor and despair. “I wasted my life looking for something that doesn’t exist. I should have known.”

“Marcus, this isn’t you talking.”

“I want to be with my son as long as I can.”

“You were hurt! Even before Drew saved you, you were starving and hurt.”

“We were fine. Let me go.”

The wall shook against Emily’s chair as the front door of the trailer banged. Footsteps thumped in the hall. Then two soldiers entered the room. Emily stood up.

Marcus also rose. “What’s happening?” he asked.

“Stay where you are, sir,” one of the soldiers said.

Emily stepped toward the armed men. She didn’t know if they were rounding up suspects or if they’d come to protect her, but she wanted to leave if Marcus intended to yell or fight. She saw an indelible hint of the top-heavy Neanderthal pose in him, menacing and strange.

“Emily, wait,” he said.

This is who he really is,
she thought.
I’ve been fooling myself wanting him to be something he’s not.

“Wait!”

She turned her back and left, second-guessing herself with every step as the soldiers led her through the trailer.

We can never let him outside,
she thought.
Not unless we’ve given up.
If Marcus retained even half of his cunning after turning Neanderthal again in the pulse, he could become their greatest Nim.

Right now, the Neanderthals seemed disorganized. Each tribe was its own entity. What if one man united them?

Emily shuddered at the notion as she followed the soldiers into the cavern’s chill air and shadows. Another soldier waited at the stairwell into the complex. She heard no other people or sounds. Were they taking her prisoner?

“I need to talk to General Strickland,” she said.

A soldier closed his hand on her arm. “Let’s get you inside,” he said. It wasn’t an answer, but Emily didn’t argue. Entering the complex seemed like the right direction, and she didn’t have the energy to fight.

From the day they’d met, the fact that Marcus turned Neanderthal had destroyed Emily’s working theories. He was borderline OCD with a high IQ, yet he didn’t fit her profile. Neither did his descriptions of Roell or Rebecca.

Other labs had proven that not everyone with autism became Neanderthal. Conversely, not everyone who turned Neanderthal was autistic. A far more subtle combination was at play in the human genome, so Emily had begun a new line of research, abandoning her initial efforts and starting over.

This morning she’d seen results at last—results that were too disturbing to share with Marcus. Her results were why she’d tried to find Drew.

She remembered thinking P.J. was better off outside the burning hospital. From there, it had been a short jump to questioning herself, and her self-doubt had been fertile ground for even greater misgivings. Originally, she’d hoped to fix Marcus and everyone like him. Now her misery held a darker thought.

If the geomagnetic storms were permanent—if she was their only salvation—Emily might be able to reverse-engineer her gene therapies. She could unlock the protein expression patterns that would make
everyone
Neanderthal, including herself.