James Rollins - Altar Of Eden

“I did. And this is what I found.”

He pointed a remote control at the screen and pressed a button. The blue snowflake suddenly bloomed outward, becoming a cerulean storm within the specimen’s skull.

Lorna gasped and covered her mouth in shock. “It’s everywhere…”

Malik smiled, proud of his discovery. “Each node is like the seed of a fractal tree. The crystals spread outward into branches, then into tinier stems, and on and on.”

Lorna pictured the fractal tree she had been shown earlier, how a single Y grew into a three-dimensional tree. The crystals were doing the same in the brain, spreading outward while growing tinier and tinier at the same time until they were no longer visible with any scanning tool, but they could still be detected by the electromagnetic radiation coming off the hidden crystals, energy rising out of the subatomic world.

Malik waved her back to her seat by his desk. “So I’ve shown you how far down this fractal puzzle burrows. How it roots down into the quantum world. So now let’s consider the opposite: how far this fractal tree stretches outward. You already know these specimens are capable of linking up, of networking together.”

She nodded and understood where he was going. “You believe by linking together that same fractal tree is branching out further into the world.”

“Correct. The fractal tree is growing beyond the confines of a single skull. And growing stronger.”

Lorna remembered Igor reciting the mathematical constant pi.

“Which begs the question where will it end? If it can spread nearly infinitely down into the subatomic world, can it spread infinitely outward. If so, what might be the result? What level of supreme intelligence might be created?”

In her mind’s eye, Lorna pictured the roots of this fractal tree disappearing into the world of quantum energy, feeding on that infinite source of power. Yet she also pictured those tree branches expanding ever outward. Maybe it was the earlier biblical analogies that had started this discussion that drew one last comparison from her.

“It’s almost like the Tree of Knowledge. From the book of Genesis.”

Malik gave a dismissive snort. “Now you’re sounding like Mr. Bennett.”

Her voice grew firmer, drawing strength from certainty, fearful of what manner of intelligence would be born from this experiment. It made her go cold.

“You have to stop what you’re doing,” she said.

Malik sighed as he sank into his desk chair, plainly disappointed. “As a fellow scientist, I had hoped you’d be more open-minded.”

She was saved further admonishment by a knock on the door. The genetics technician stepped again into the room, bearing aloft a steel tray holding three large syringes.

Malik brightened again. “Ah, Edward, are the hormonal tests completed?”

“Yes, Doctor. And I have the drug cocktail prepared for the subject.”

Malik’s gaze shifted back to her. “Then it seems we must continue our discussion a little later, Dr. Polk. See if I can’t persuade you to look at this more rationally versus leaning on the Bible. But I guess that’s expected when you’re working on an island named Eden.”

Lorna placed a hand on her belly, fearing what was to come. Behind the technician appeared the familiar bulk of her bodyguard. Connor must have read the panic in her face. A hand settled to his holstered sidearm, discouraging any fight from her.

“After your injections,” Malik said, “you’ll want to lie down for at least a half hour. I’m afraid what’s to come will not be pleasant. Accelerating the follicle stimulation of your ovaries can be a bit”-he chose his next word carefully- “taxing!”

Lorna’s fear sharpened into a knife in her gut.

“Afterward we’ll talk again. We’ll have a couple of hours before your ovarian tissue will be ready for harvesting. Before that’s done, I’ll show you what we intend to do with your eggs.”

He waved her off. With no choice, Lorna stood up. It took an extra moment for her blood to follow. Her vision darkened at the edges.

Connor came forward and grabbed her elbow impatiently.

As she was hauled away she got one last look at the monitors on the wall. The brain scan continued to rotate on the screen, showing the magnetic storm raging within that skull.

Despite her terror about what was in store for her, a part of her went cold and determined at the sight-and its implication. God had banished man from the Garden of Eden for daring to trespass upon the Tree of Knowledge.

But what if man learned to grow his own Tree?

Where might it end?

She didn’t know the answer. She knew only one thing for certain.

Someone had to stop them.

“Bon Dieu. You don’t look so good, little brother.”

Jack couldn’t argue with Randy’s assessment. He felt like someone had poured molten lead into his joints while leaving his skin to alternately burn or go damp with a cold sweat. He had drugged himself with some nondrowsy TheraFlu and hoped it would be enough to sustain him for another twenty-four hours.

“I’ll be fine,” he said to Randy, as much as to himself.

His brother stood a few yards from a small A-Star helicopter as it warmed up its engine, rotors whirling up to full speed. The roaring whine cut like a rusty hacksaw into his skull. The chopper would be airlifting Randy and Kyle over to the Thibodeauxs’ boat, currently steaming toward Lost Eden Cay.

Off to the side, Kyle stood with his arms crossed, anxious to get moving, one fingernail digging into his plaster cast, like a dog worrying a bone. He had wanted to join Jack’s assault team, to go directly after his sister, but his broken wrist precluded him from accompanying them. Not that Jack would have let Kyle anyway. He needed men he could trust, men with military training in covert operations.

Still, Kyle looked ready to claw his cast off and join Jack’s men. Mack Higgins and Bruce Kim waited a couple decks below, down by the wellhead with the drill crew. Even farther down, a seaplane floated at the foot of the offshore platform, ready to fly the assault team over to the island and dump them and their gear a mile offshore.

“You have the timetable?” Jack asked Randy.

His brother tapped a finger against his skull. “ Mais oui. It’s all in here.”

Jack didn’t like the sound of that. He’d just spent the past half hour going over the assault plan in the office of the rig’s geologist. For this to work, each group would have to act in perfect synchronization.

Kyle stepped forward and cast a scowl in Randy’s direction. “Don’t worry. I have it all written down. We’ll wait for your signal before approaching the island.”

Jack nodded, glad at least that someone good with numbers was going to be aboard the Thibodeauxs’ boat. He had full confidence in Randy and his friends when it came to a down-and-dirty bar fight, but as to sticking to timetables, Cajuns seldom wore wristwatches.

Randy merely shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll be where we need to be.”

“And I’ll make sure they are,” Kyle added.

Now it was Randy’s turn to glower. “Je vais passer une calotte,” he threatened under his breath.

There was definitely no love lost between these two men. Jack hoped that old anger-buried deep between their two families-didn’t boil up into a problem for this mission.

“Just get on board the chopper,” Jack said. “I’ll touch base by radio when we’re in the air.”

The two men turned to the helicopter. They kept a wary distance from each other as they walked away.

Jack dismissed them from his mind and headed for the stairs that led down from the elevated helipad. He wanted to be out of direct earshot when the helicopter took off. His head pounded with each rising beat of the rotors as he climbed down the steep stairs. Finally sheltered from the rotorwash, he was assaulted again by the smell of oil and axle grease from the rig. The farther down he went, the worse it got, until he swore he could taste grease on the back of his tongue.