Ted Kosmatka - The Games

“I don’t get you. You’re in the hospital, and you’re still thinking about work?”

“I’ve got nine and a half other fingers. What we need now is data.”

“You have a problem.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.”

“We need to learn everything we can about the creature.”

“It’s all there,” Ben said, gesturing to the paperwork. “Right down to its raw code, but I don’t know what you expect to find.”

“Maybe I’ll know when I see it.”

“We’ve already done a head-to-toe workup.”

“Yes, but with the wrong mindset and the wrong people. We were looking for similarities to existing species, existing patterns. If this organism really is new, then we’ll have to relate form to function if we’re going to learn anything about what to expect.”

“So what are you saying—bring in some new talent?”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“We can do that. We’ve had teams of anatomists fighting over time to study it.”

Silas considered. He thought of the creature as it had hissed at him. That strange alien sound. “No, that would still be from the wrong perspective. Conventional anatomic study is still rooted in cladistics.”

“So is all of biology.”

“Not all of it,” Silas said.

He flipped open his notebook and scanned down the page, not wanting to look at Benjamin when he said what he was thinking. “I think we need a xenobiologist.”

Silas heard the smile in Benjamin’s voice. “Busy field, that?”

“You know what I mean. Theoretical xenobiology.”

“How is that gonna help?”

“Fresh eyes. A different perspective.”

Ben nodded. “Okay, you’re the boss. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“I want you to check who’s the best.”

“Sure.”

“And, Ben.”

“Yeah?”

“This is a silent program. No publicity on this one.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I assumed that.”

Vidonia João stepped through the hatch of the small aircraft and into the direct glare of the Southern California sun. She paused at the top of the platform and turned her face into the hot breeze. It had been a long flight on short notice, but despite the heat, it felt good to be in the open air again.

Long black hair fanned out behind her, exposing the planes of an unusual face.

Her ancestral pool was broad and shallow, drawn from the oldest sailing routes across the North and South Atlantic. It was the kind of face sometimes seen in Caribbean markets or metropolitan fashion shows—places where the world’s cultures mixed and matched and made their own thing. Soft brown skin, full lips, a long, high-arched nose.

She cast her dark eyes into the glare and saw a tall blond man waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Silas? she wondered. She shouldered her travel bag and descended in a series of bounces that drew the man’s eye to places other than her face.

“Dr. João?” the blond man asked. His face was scorched deep red by the noonday sun.

Her white teeth flashed affirmation.

“I’m Benjamin Wells, head cytologist at Helix. We’re happy you decided to join us.”

“Happy to be here. It will be nice to step out of the classroom for a while.” Her accent was soft, subtle, something she’d worked hard to smooth out in the eleven years she’d been an American citizen.

“Well, glad to oblige you. You’ll certainly be doing more than teaching here.”

“That’s what I’ve been told, but it’s still not clear what exactly I will be doing. Opportunities in industry aren’t exactly common in my field.”

“Dr. Williams wants to brief you about that when we get to the compound. If you’ll follow me,” he said.

And as simple as that, the introductions were over.

Vidonia followed him across a dozen yards of hot tarmac to a low, sleek limousine. The driver nodded as he took her bags, and the bite of the air-conditioning was welcome on the bare skin of her calves.

“Any jet lag?” Benjamin asked once they were on their way.

“Not too bad.”

“Good, because Silas will want to see you as soon as possible.”

“The sooner the better. Are we stopping by the hotel first?”

“Hotel? I guess you are still in the dark. You’ll be staying at the compound. This is a blue-level project, and they take security pretty seriously around here. For your own safety and the safety of the program, all consultants are to be on-site for the duration.”

“How many consultants are there?” This was getting more interesting by the minute.

“Counting you?”

“Yeah.”

Benjamin looked up, as if counting to himself. After a moment of contemplation, “One,” he said.

“One?”

“Yep.”

Vidonia reclined deeper into the leather seat and let the view through the window wash over her. The limo was making good time, cruising in the commercial lane while the rest of the traffic struggled along bumper to bumper.

They were high in the air, and the elevated highway gave a breathtaking view of the city. Low rectangular buildings sprawled away in all directions, and in the distance, glittering spires stretched toward the sky. There were no trees or green of any kind. It made her sick for her childhood. But that was so long ago now. Long ago and far away, and she the better for it, she told herself.

Twenty minutes later they descended the skyway, and the landscape around the thoroughfare had opened up considerably. The urban sprawl had given way to something else. The broad steel buildings they drove past were now spaced farther apart, crouching on huge park-size swaths of grass. Here, at least, green had taken a foothold.

“This is the technical district,” Benjamin said, when he noticed her interest.

It reminded her of the poem Where Science Lives , all those steel buildings on their neat little parks. The straight roads and ordered landscaping. Looking out at that, it was easy to imagine that science belonged here and might have little use in places where the roads weren’t quite so clean and orderly. Places where dirty children begged at the corners.

Ben revealed his discomfort at her continued silence through his fidgeting and an occasional awkward glance. She knew the type, always looking for the next interaction and confused about what to do in its absence. An unusual temperament in a scientist. She decided to put him at ease. “Was I hard to find?”

He shook his head. “Not really. But I did a lot of research before I contacted you. You’re near the top of your field.”

“You give me too much credit, really,” she said. “But even if I am near the top, why not contact those at the summit? Why me?”

“That’s rather complicated.”

She looked at him, waiting.

“You’ve managed not to attract a lot of attention from those outside your area of specialty.”

“Or much in it,” she said.

Ben smiled. “Your absence isn’t likely to require a lot of explanation in scientific circles.”

“Oh, I’m beginning to understand,” she said. “So you mean I’m good, but I’m not so good that I’m going to be missed.”

“Something like that.”

When they arrived at the compound a few minutes later, the scale of the place shocked her. The facility was enormous and sprawling—a maze of winding roads that took them past several suites of buildings and parking lots. Ben took her directly to the research lab. They parked and entered the building. She said nothing as he led her down the long halls and carded her through the checkpoints.