Dave Freedman - Natural Selection

“Jason who ? What kind of stupid name is Jason anyway? Get rid of him.”

“Dr. Vishakeratne, he’s the one I told you about.” Andrea, Vishakeratne’s thirty-year-old assistant, shuffled into the room, speaking in a New York accent that contrasted humorously with her boss’s Indian accent. “Remember he called earlier? From California? Well, he’s here now, waiting outside actually, and he’d very much like to speak with you.” After reaching San Francisco airport in record time, Jason had taken the next plane to Newark, and a fast taxi straight to Princeton.

“Tell him to get the fuck away. I’m busy here, for Christ’s sake.”

Andrea suppressed a smile. Vishakeratne was famous for his bad temper and filthy mouth, characteristics not highlighted in Princeton’s 250th anniversary fund-raising pamphlets. Seated in a massive, elegant office the likes of which most academics only dreamed of, the sixty-one-year-old pointed to a few stapled sheets in her hand.

“What the hell is that?”

“A confidentiality agreement.” Andrea meekly handed him the sheets. Darryl had recommended that Jason make him sign one; the doctor was rumored to be quite a shark and having some legal protection couldn’t hurt.

“A confidentiality agreement! This crazy bastard from California not only wants to meet with me unannounced, he wants me to sign a confidentiality agreement!” The doctor laughed heartily, genuinely amused. “He should be castrated! What a crackpot!”

“I don’t think he’s a crackpot, Doctor.”

“No, of course you don’t.” He tore through the sheets. “What’s he promising here? That the moon is made of cheese? That the earth’s crust is composed entirely of low-fat yogurt?” He threw the confidentiality agreement on the floor. “All Californians are crackpots. Maybe he arrived early for Halloween. Now just get rid of—”

Jason entered the room. He’d been listening at the door and just couldn’t take it anymore. His eyes were lasers as he carried a medium-size white cooler with a red top. He didn’t have time to screw around.

“Dr. Vishakeratne, my name is Jason Aldridge. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I have something here that just can’t wait. I know you’ll be very interested to see it, but I need you to sign that confidentiality agreement first.” He walked closer and placed the cooler on the large desk.

The doctor hadn’t heard a word. He was terrified, stock-still in his leather chair, worried that the man who’d just entered his office was some sort of terrorist, and that his cooler held a bomb. Vishakeratne was far from paranoid; in the country he came from, suicide bombers were not uncommon. A colleague had recently been killed by just such a person, and Vishakeratne himself received three death threats a year. Maybe someone was finally following up. Despite his horror, he stayed cool.

“Call security,” he said quietly to his assistant. Then he didn’t move, tried not to even breathe. The cooler was three feet from his face.

Unaware of the man’s concerns, Jason leaned forward and pulled off the top. Vishakeratne jolted backward, nearly falling off his chair.

Jason was astonished. “What are you doing? Doctor, I’m not a mad bomber. I have something here you want to see, believe me. Just take a peek, and if it doesn’t interest you, I’ll leave.” He held up the red top harmlessly. “Fair enough?”

Vishakeratne breathed easier. Nothing had exploded, and the white man didn’t look or sound like a suicide bomber. He was wearing khakis and a light blue, button-down shirt, purchased at a men’s clothing store at the San Francisco airport. Vishakeratne’s curiosity was suddenly piqued. If this intense-looking fellow had really come all the way from California, what had he brought with him? The scientist slid toward his desk and peered into the cooler.

“Sweet mother of Buddha,” the chairman of Princeton’s neuroscience department said.

“Doctor, I need you to sign that confidentiality agreement.”

Vishakeratne didn’t respond. He simply gazed into the cooler.

“Doctor?”

He still didn’t respond.

Jason put the top back on and suddenly had Vishakeratne’s attention. The doctor looked up at him quizzically. “Yes?”

“The confidentiality agreement?”

“Oh.” Now Vishakeratne couldn’t move fast enough. He fumbled at his shirt pocket, searching for a pen. He couldn’t find one. He patted down his jacket. Nothing there either. He ripped open a drawer and rooted around inside, pulling out a Bic. He literally ran to pick up the now partially torn confidentiality agreement off the carpeted floor. Not bothering to read it, he scribbled his signature and the day’s date four times. He gave it to Jason then placed a hand on the cooler’s top.

“May I?”

Jason eyed him evenly, even more anxious than he to learn about the fantastic brain.

“Please.”

IT’S REAL all right. The number one brain expert in the world had just finished prodding and probing the strange brain with his bare hands. It wasn’t a fake. The bloody brain was real!

“Where did you get this?”

Jason explained.

“I see. And why are you showing it to me, Mr…. ?”

“Aldridge. Jason Aldridge. I want you to analyze it. Tell me what you make of it.”

“In exchange for what?” Excited as he was, Vishakeratne was still a businessman—and Jason knew that.

“An exclusive. You can analyze this brain from top to bottom and publicly release your findings before anybody else even knows it exists.” Jason knew it had to be the best offer the great man had ever received.

But Bandar Vishakeratne barely blinked. He’d recently entered a Thursday-night poker game with a group of engineering professors and had become quite adept at hiding his emotions. He simply stared into the cooler. Then, in a low, quiet voice, he said, “That’s a fair offer. You’d better let me get to work now.”

“SON OF a bitch…” Craig Summers looked up from the interactive map. “We just got a signal, guys!”

The others ran over; Darryl arrived first. “Where?”

“North of San Francisco, right off Point Reyes.”

A whistle. “All the way up there without us detecting them.” Point Reyes was sixty miles north of their current location in Half Moon Bay.

Craig nodded. “That’s what swimming the canyons will do.”

“You think they’re doing that intentionally? To evade detection?”

“Ah, I can’t imagine.”

“Excuse me, is that depth right?” Monique pointed at the monitor.

Craig’s eyes bulged. “Jesus, they’re at the surface. And…” He leaned in. “Look how close to shore they are. Christ, they’re almost on the beach. ”

Monique nodded. “Craig, we better get up there. Right now.”

Summers literally ran to the bridge and suddenly they were flying up the coast. No one said the words—they could barely hear themselves think over the wind—but they all wondered the same thing: Why were the rays suddenly so close to shore?

“NOTHING HERE.” It was ninety minutes later, and Darryl shook his head. “Not a damn thing.”

They’d made fantastic time, passing El Granada, Daly City, and Muir Woods at record speed. As the boat’s engine took a needed break, they bobbed just twenty yards offshore of a desolate Point Reyes beach.

“This is where the signal came from?” Monique asked, scanning the shoreline with binoculars.

Craig nodded. “To the inch.”

Darryl put down a harpoon gun he’d been holding just in case. “Well, I don’t see a damn thing.”

“Wait a second….” Monique suddenly pointed. “Look at that. ”